Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Commodity fetishism! Yum!!

It appears to be video week here on the Wind-Up Blog. In that spirit, here's a commercial break.

I just saw this Quizno's commercial, in which a woman eats a five dollar bill instead of a sandwich. This is shocking and funny because it's a play on what Marx calls commodity fetishism. A $5 bill is just a piece of paper, but thanks to the labor that it hides, it's endowed with a magical power that can turn it into lunch (which supposedly has more meat on it than similarly priced sandwiches from competing chains). I had a great laugh reading a communist newspaper in Harvard Square a couple weeks ago that advocated overthrowing the capitalist system, and quoted Lenin (really?? in 2008?!?). However, the original is still well worth reading. I know you heard this in college, but Marx himself, the original, is such a good writer on capitalism. He would see this commercial, and go, "EXACTLY!"